The X-Men comics and movies have captivated the imaginations of audiences not only due to epic battles between good guys and bad, but for exploring the often slippery divide between what makes our choices right or wrong. It also explores in a very real way, the social ramifications of difference and power, especially when that power cannot be feasibly controlled. It’s not as easy to side with Professor Xavier’s position as an adult as it is as a child. It’s not as easy as it probably should be, because Magneto’s argument holds real weight. Humanity can be evil, and we do fear what we can’t control. If Professor X’s diplomacy and ethics are easy to rally behind as movie watchers and comic book readers, how easy are they to employ in our real world lives? It’s part of that complicated moral argument that makes X-Men such a socially relevant mythology and a sophisticated critique on a culture that is obsessed with power and control.

The movies are smart, witty, funny, and, yes, important, because they force us to look in the mirror and withhold judgment. Magneto is a vengeful character who is wholly indifferent to the suffering of people, and yet we can still empathise with what he’s been forced to live through, having lost his parents in the Holocaust. In many ways humanity’s evil is greater than his, and yet he has in some real way become the evil that so impacted his life, believing that he is superior to others because he has a particular ability. It’s storylines that are as complex as that which have drawn us back into this mythology over and over again.

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